Luke Hansen was looking up, but not quite as high as the only software he could find to help solve his problem.
He wanted a better way to keep track of projects at his family business, White Castle Roofing, and he was spending too much time following crews to various job sites. He looked for software that would help him, but the closest thing he could find was an astrology app.
So Hansen collaborated with Agilx, a local software company, and created CompanyCam in 2015. Since then, the startup's app has grown and adapted to help clients across the country.
“We just wanted to make it simple so guys in the field can document their projects,†said Hansen, CEO of the Lincoln-based company that early on added Chad Wilken from Hudl as its chief technology officer.
“It wasn’t quite starting in a garage, but when Chad and I were sitting in the back of the office at White Castle and me looking over his shoulder and being annoying, he probably wished he was in a garage somewhere.â€
As a roofer, Hansen needed to document his jobs, from the bid through the work and finally the finished product. CompanyCam helps by using GPS to locate sites and documents a date/time stamp on each photo with the ability to add notes and measurements. The photo automatically uploads to the cloud and is saved for the business. Every project can be accessed individually and organized in any way the business wants.
It’s not just for roofers either. Other industries use CompanyCam for projects involving landscaping, plumbing, pool building, solar panels, fencing, painting, restoration and electrical work. The list goes on, and the applications are universal.
There are ways to share progress and post to social media platforms, and users can deploy drones from DroneDeploy, one of a growing list of CompanyCam partners, to integrate with other photos of a site.
“You can send a report to a client as a PDF in seconds," said Hansen, touting the app's most important features of helping contractors organize their projects, solve problems and make decisions faster.
There is a free trial for companies to test the waters. For those that sign up, the Pro plan costs $19 a month per user, or $16 per user with an annual membership. Even if you drop your membership, existing reports will still be available.Â
“When we first started the company, we charged $8 per user," Hansen said, noting that price increases have generally been tied to added features and new ways to help the customer.
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â€We want to play the long game of making it so obvious and so valuable to use this app that’s you’d be crazy not to use it,†Hansen said.
More clients are signing on each year.
“I’m probably saving at least 15, if not 20 hours a week,†said Bob Smith of TechZone in Jefferson, Iowa.
Since CompanyCam's inception, more than 400 million photos have been stored and 15 million projects created.
“The last two years, we have more than doubled, both years,†said Tullen Mabbutt, the chief financial officer. “It gets harder to double, but we’ve been able to maintain that.â€
Last fall, CompanyCam received a $30 million venture capital investment led by Insight Partners, a global private equity and venture capital firm in New York. It's one of the largest-ever such investments for a local company.
But even amid rapid growth, this is no stuffed-shirt business. The website insists that CompanyCam “exists purely to make fun of our CEO," and the team page introduces you to the folks who make CompanyCam run, with funny and irreverent comments about each worker.
The business is expanding so fast, the team page hasn’t kept up with the growth, showcasing just 74 of its nearly 160 employees.
“There are days that it’s not as fun, but we’re trying to be a place that people legitimately want to be at and that adds to their life," Hansen said.
The majority of the employees are local, with 80% from the Lincoln area. The CompanyCam office is in Lincoln’s Railyard, but there is a flexible work policy and employees can choose when and if they want to work from the office. And, as with any online business, CompanyCam has employees spread far and wide, with folks in New York, Texas, Florida, Colorado and California.
“Culture is created from the top down,†said Hannah Bauer, director of marketing management. “Luke has tried to live on our three values — show up, grow up and do good. We try to hire people who reflect those values.â€
Hansen said keeping perspective on his family and the business is important.
“Sometimes you don’t want to go stand at the trade show or make 100 phone calls on customer leads, but showing up is almost half the battle," he said.Â
“We want to do good by people and also want to be a force for goodness. That sounds lame, but we believe truth and transparency and building trust is good for me, good for the company, good for our customers and doing business. If we do those things, then we will be OK."
Photos: Lincoln's Pinnacle Bank Arena from the ground up